Contrarian thinking can be great because it taps into the intuition that the masses are mostly followers who can be led anywhere, not critical thinkers who've deeply examined what they believe. Being contrarian, then, is akin to staking out a new leadership position.

The space of contrarian ideas is vast, and most of them are probably bad, but, nevertheless, the willingness to hold unconventional, internally consistent views should be celebrated, because it increases diversity of thought. Our collective hive mind grows stronger through heresy.

However, I like my heresy with a splash of axiomatic precision, which is sadly lacking in this article.